Currently, purchasing goods or services involves selecting items of interest and then paying for them using one of a variety of methods including cash, credit cards, debit cards, electronic wallets (E-wallets), under-skin chip technologies, Apple pay, Samsung pay, Bitcoin, as well as others. Depending upon how items are purchased, payments are made in diverse ways including, but not limited to, online payments, physical payment to a cashier, physical payment with cashier-less checkout machines etc. Some newer methods of payment include pre-sale options that a customer may opt to use so long as they have the appropriate prerequisites and resources to successfully complete a payment transaction. Heretofore, when items are purchased, the customer receives a paper receipt or a digital receipt usually incorporated in the body of an email.
Paper receipts have been in use since long before the advent of computers and computer systems. Before then they were the norm and were the only post-sale evidence providing a proof of purchase to those buying/renting/leasing products and services. With the now prevalent use of computers and the wide diversity in point-of-sale or POS systems used, together with the wide diversity of payment methods noted above, it is difficult to have a common digital receipt alternative to paper receipts, even with the tremendous inefficiencies paper receipts have.
A major problem with the current process is the manual labor required in managing receipts whether for personal purposes, corporate expenses, or household budgeting. Therefore, an assumption behind the concept of this disclosure is that most people are tired of handling paper receipts and the excessive effort needed to be spent on scanning them into some type of digital format and then compiling and sorting them. This does not include the additional effort in retrieving them when an item has to be returned or exchanged, when tax filings have to be prepared, as well as for budgeting and determining spending patterns.
Now, new POS systems are beginning to move away from paper receipts by implementing techniques such as emailing receipts (electronic or E-receipts) as noted above, or even sending them within short message service (SMS) messages. A problem with these newer approaches is they require people to enter their email or phone credentials upon every sale, which is cumbersome and not very appealing to the average purchaser. Also, cashiers now have to verbally ask a consumer if they actually need a paper receipt. This is done in an effort for the store to save on paper and ink for purchasers who do not care for a paper receipt with their purchase. Also, many consumers are indifferent to obtaining a paper receipt since most people tend to lose these pieces of papers or throw them away anyway.
Further regarding email receipts, they mostly arrive with numerous other emails and so have to be manually searched, and when found, classified.
As shown in FIG. 1, a current prior art seller and buyer transaction processing system 100 is shown having multiple sellers 102A (SA), 102B (SB), and 102N (SN) (three shown by way of example only) with each having a single buyer B shown as Bx, By, and Bz (as well as indicated by 106-1, 106-2 and 106-3) at each respective seller location 102A, 102B, and 102N. The sellers 102 can be a physical seller or an e-commerce seller. As shown, buyer Bx 106-1 is purchasing purchased products (PP) 112X shown as purchased products PPX1, PPX2 and PPXN by way of example. The Buyer Bx submits transaction payment TP1 114A to the seller purchase user interface (UI) 104A, which can be a person at a check out counter or an on-line web-site, via a purchase transaction 105A. The seller UI is coupled to Seller A (SA) 102A purchase processing system (PPSA) 108A such as a point of sale (POS) terminal. The POS system 108A can accept cash, or any other means of payment and in some cases transmits a financial transaction request 118 to a remote financial system FS1 110A. The financial system 110A can validate the transaction such as if by credit card, debit card, e-wallet, Paypal, bitcoin, or any other suitable means for transaction payment as currently known or as may be developed from time to time. The purchase processing system PPSA 108A provides the seller UI 104A with an acceptance of the transaction payment 114A. At that point, the user interface 104A either directly, or through use of a cash register or payment device of the UI 104A, either prints out a paper transaction receipt TR1 116 that is then provided to the buyer 106-1. This can also include prompting the buyer 106 or providing the buyer 106 with a PDF or scanned copy as the transaction receipt 116A.
This process is repeated at each brick and mortar seller location, for each location of each seller and for each and every buyer at each seller.
As shown, buyer By 106-2 is purchasing purchased products (PP) 112Y shown as purchased products PPY1, PPY2 and PPYN by way of example. The Buyer By submits transaction payment TP2 114B to the seller purchase user interface (UI) 104B, which will be a different person or checkout counter or on-line web-site via a purchase transaction 105B. The seller UI is coupled to Seller B (SB) 102B purchase processing system (PPSB) 108B such as a point of sale (POS) terminal. The POS system 108B can accept cash, or any other means of payment and in some cases transmits a financial transaction request 118 to a remote financial system FS2 110B. The financial system 110B validates the transaction by any suitable means which is often different but could be the same as addressed. The purchase processing system PPSB 108B provides the seller UI 104B with an acceptance of the transaction payment 114B. At that point, the user interface 104B either directly, or through use of a cash register or payment device of the UI 104B, either prints out a paper transaction receipt or emailed PDF receipt TR2 116. And similarly, buyer Bz 106-N is purchasing purchased products (PP) 112Z shown as purchased products PPZ1, PPZ2 and PPZN by way of example. The Buyer Bz 106-N submits transaction payment TP3 114N to the seller purchase user interface (UI) 104N via a purchase transaction 105N. The seller UI is coupled to Seller N (SN) 102N purchase processing system (PPSN) 108N such as a point of sale (POS) terminal. The POS system 108N accepts any form of payment and transmits as may be required by a financial transaction request 118 to a remote financial system FS3 110N. The financial system 110N can validate the transaction using any other suitable means for transaction payment. The purchase processing system PPSN 108N provides the seller UI 104N with an acceptance of the transaction payment 114N. At that point, the user interface 104N either directly or through use of a cash register or payment device of the UI 104N, either prints out a paper transaction receipt TR3 116 that is then provided to the buyer 106-3. This can also include prompting the buyer 106 or providing the buyer 106 with an PDF or scanned copy as the transaction receipt 116N
As addressed herein, each and every Seller 102A, 102B, and 102N has a different and standalone and non-compatible purchase processing system 108A, 108B, and 108N and each provides a different transaction receipt TR1 116A, TR1 116B, and TRN 116N. None of the purchase processing systems 108 (108A, 108B, and 108N) are common and they do not share information. All of the transaction receipts 116 (116A, 116B and 116N) are different, have different information, and are either paper or emailed PDF copies that the each Buyer 106-1, 106-2 and 106-N must separately administer and manage. In some instances each Buyer 106-1, 106-2 and 106-N at each seller 102A, 102B, and 102N is the same person, but they receive separate and completely different transactions receipts 116A, 116B and 116N from each of the sellers 102A, 102B and 102N.
Summarizing the above, and as shown in FIG. 1, there are now two main barriers to the emergence of a truly digital receipt solution for verifying or recording consumer purchases. One is the diversity of POS systems, and the other is diversity of payment methods. The present disclosure addresses both issues. Importantly, as technology evolves, and in particular now that Software as a Service (SAAS) and Cloud technologies are becoming more prevalent, it is no longer necessary to issue paper or even email receipts, even though they will continued to be used. Nonetheless, because issues such as a purchaser's verification of what they bought, product returns, and individual as well as supplier and credit issuers business and financial tracking requirements need to be addressed, there is a need to conveniently track, store, and access any issued receipts.